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Foreign Religious Series 



Edited by 
R. J. COOKE, D. D. 



Secohd Series. i6mo. cloth. Each 40 cents, met. 



DO WE NEED CHRIST FOR 

COMMUNION WITH GOD ? 

By Professor Ludwig Lemme, of the University 
of Heidelberg 



ST. PAUL AS A THEOLOGIAN 

(two parts) 
By Professor Paul Peine, of the University of Vienna 



THE NEW MESSAGE IN THE TEACHING 

OF JESUS 

By Professor Philipp Bachmann, of the University 

of Erlangen 



THE PECULIARITY OF THE RELIGION 

OF THE BIBLE 

By Professor Conrad Von Orelli, of the University 
of Basle 



OUR LORD 

By Professor K. Miiller, of the University of Erlangen 



The New Message in 
the Teaching of Jesus 



By 
PHILIPP BACHMANN 

Professor of Theology in the University of Erlangen 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



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Copyright, 1907, by 
EATON & MAINS. 



THE QUESTION 

In times of old Israel was fruitful in re- 
ligious vitality. Holy seers and singers, 
pious women, God-inspired heroes formed 
the living power of its history. The whole 
Israelitish nationality was governed by the 
thought of God — early it willingly suffered 
to be impregnated by it; and early again it 
w^as unwillingly subdued by it. But the re- 
ligious life in mutual conditionality was 
here most intimately connected wath the life 
of the nation. At decisive turns of national 
and political development piety and religious 
belief are therefore also in the most vital 
commotion. As a matter of course centuries 
of rest and relaxation follow. The religious 
power without always becoming wholly 
extinct, loses nevertheless some of its fer- 
vent immediateness, some of its former in- 
exhaustible depth. Thus changed, ebb and 
flow, in Israel's religious development. The 
tide is the hour of living production. From 
hidden sources come new benefits. Who- 



6 The New Message 

ever draws from them, brings fresh Hfe. 
The ebb brings new tasks; what the tide 
brought up, it collects, preserves, works up. 
In the place of production comes reproduc- 
tion; the new is conserved, finally it be- 
comes old, being long possessed, and the 
times gradually become ripe for the prophet, 
for the genius, who is to lift himself up and 
the times with him to a new development. 

Jesus descended from Israel's soil. One 
can hardly think too realistically of this, 
how much he was inwardly connected with 
the religious peculiarity of his people and 
their laws of development. He grew up 
under the influence of the ancient, sacred 
authorities of his people, the Scripture, the 
cult, the entire religious order of life and 
mode of thinking. These influences were 
especially strong about him. For according 
to its general nature the time of Jesus be- 
longed on the whole to the more conserva- 
tive and reproductive periods of Israel's his- 
tory of religion. The synagogues were 
above all the places where the religious life 
of the Jews was moulded and fostered ; in the 
synagogue, however, ruled the scribe and 
he was the keeper of tradition. No public. 



The Question 7 

or any paid office gave him so much influ- 
ence. The scribes were in themselves pri- 
vate persons Hke others ; not a few of them 
made their hving by the work of their 
hands. But they differed from others by 
their theological professional training. They 
devoted close study to the Holy Scripture. 
They understood, what the common man in 
the time of Jesus did not understand, the 
Hebrew, the language of the Old Testa- 
ment; and through these scribes he was 
obliged to have the Scripture, which he 
wished to hear, translated into the Aramaic 
vernacular. The religious lectures in the 
schools were not exclusively by them, yet 
for the most part this instruction was in their 
hands. On the basis of the Old Testament 
law they made the law for the time being. 
As spiritual guides they often came into very 
close relationship with the individual. With- 
out their help he was unable to apply con- 
scientiously to the different conditions of life 
the intricate injunctions of the law and the 
'^traditions of the elders." Those of Israel's 
youth who were mentally aspiring, attended 
their lectures. Thus they had the oppor- 
tunity to exercise an influence in all direc- 



8 The New Message 

tions. And they exercised it throughout in 
the sense of a strict obedience toward that 
which in religious matters was considered by 
the fathers in virtue of the Scripture as 
lawful and as law. The light and shade of 
their activity came from their most peculiar 
method. True, they had to succumb to the 
movements with which Judaism in general 
had to submit in religious matters since the 
extinction of the prophetic spirit; but they 
also helped at the same time that such move- 
ments appeared as the highest and only au- 
thority. Though they presented something 
new in their treatment, it appeared as 
ancient and demanded respect. Thus the 
time when Jesus appeared, was under the 
sign of the rule of the old. Jesus also 
worked in the manner of a scribe. He 
taught in the schools from the Scripture, 
gave pastoral advice as to good and evil; 
and gathered a circle of studious hearers 
around him. As a result he was also hon- 
ored with the title of the scribes, "Rabbi." 
He was called by the people "Master" (Mark 
5. 35; Luke 17. 13); "Rabbi" by his dis- 
ciples (Mark 4. 38; John ir. 8) and evert 
by the members of the body of the scribes 



The Question 9 

(Matt. 8. 19; 12. 38; Luke 11. 45; John 3. 
2). Jesus did not object to this address 
(see Matt. 19. 16-19) ; he even found it 
in harmony with his character (John 13. 
13; Matt. 23. 8). 

Thus with many traits of his appearance 
he could be classified with that which ex- 
isted, and it was his own expressed in- 
tention to let alone the venerable, ancient 
foundations of the whole. ^Think not that 
I am come to destroy the law, or the 
prophets" (Matt. 5. 17). Yet, the picture 
of Jesus did not fully and always fit in that 
setting. The scribes themselves did not find 
him up to the mark ; because he was not edu- 
cated according to their rules ; he was only 
a self-taught person (John 7. 15). His 
teaching had not the traditional origin ; and 
it lacked also the traditional manner. How 
could he, who had not the stamp of the 
school, be at home in mere traditions? Jesus 
did not attend the lectures of the rabbis, 
which necessarily means at the same time — 
by all connection with the old — that he had 
nevertheless and from the beginning in him- 
self something that was independent, fresh, 
and immediate. When he stepped forth 



lo The New Message 

from his retirement, the people recognized 
his influence in the sentiment : "He teaches 
as one having authority and not as our 
scribes" (Matt. 7. 29). What new doctrine 
is this? (Mark i. 2y,) Such recognition of 
the new, as it did not exist before, referred 
not immediately and altogether to the word 
of this scribe, but to the deeds accompanying 
his word; "for with authority commandeth 
he even the unclean spirits, and they obey 
him" (Mark i. 2y), But it concerned also 
his word. It was felt that this teacher need- 
ed no authority such as the schools conferred 
through its learning which was obtained and 
preserved through centuries. By a power 
immediately belonging to himself he secured 
for his word a place in human hearts. 

Wherein did this power consist ? It was the 
power of his independent personality; but 
it was also the peculiar character of his 
preaching, which, because convincing, ear- 
nestly aroused the heart and conscience. He 
not only spoke as one differing from those 
whom they usually heard, but he also spoke 
something different from what they usually 
heard, differing so much in all this that oc- 
casionally Jesus had to emphasize the great 



The Question ir 

contrast between the authoritative old and 
the freshly flowing new: "No man also 
seweth a piece of new cloth on an old gar- 
ment, else the new piece that filled it up 
taketh away from the old, and the rent is 
made worse" (Mark 2. 21). 

The nature of the future work of his 
disciples Jesus comprised once in the rule: 
"Every scribe which is instructed into the 
kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that 
is an householder, w^hich bringeth forth out 
of his treasure things nezv and old'' (Matt. 
13. 52). Things new and old; this means 
here in the widest sense — authoritative and 
personal, traditional and newly received, ac- 
quired and experienced, common and indi- 
vidual. But Jesus himself was such a scribe 
instructed into the kingdom of heaven, the 
highest among all, the most faithful to tra- 
dition and at the same time the most produc- 
tive, the end and the beginning in one. Thus 
he carried in his inward treasure things old, 
which he had from others and shared with 
others, and things new, which originally 
and solely belonged to him. The clear ques- 
tion then is: Where does the independence 
of Jesus begin ? 



12 The New Message 

What is the New, which separates him 
from his surroundings? We seek it in 
his teaching. But is not this a mistake 
from the start? Does not the productive 
power of Jesus consist in his personahty, 
in the carrying out of a personal Hfe filled 
by God with greatness and purity and fire? 
Is not this more important and more orig- 
inal than the ideas and thoughts which filled 
him? The present time has a special eye 
for this side of the life of Jesus. But it is in 
danger of running into opposition with 
reality by tearing asunder the teaching and 
the person of Jesus. In opposition to simple 
historical reality, we repeat, for those first 
disciples who lived entirely in the immediate 
contemplation of the personality of Jesus, 
felt themselves bound to him because they 
had to confess: "Thou hast the words of 
Eternal Life" (John 6. 68) ; and Jesus him- 
self bound with all emphasis to his sayings 
those who wished to be his disciples and 
through him raised to salvation (Matt. 7. 
24). His word is the seed of the kingdom 
of heaven (Mark 4. 14), for it is spirit 
and life and the power of sanctification 
(John 6. 63 ; 17. 17). But even with a gen- 



The Question 13 

era! psychological reality, that separation 
and opposition does not agree; for a per- 
sonal life, just as It IS purified, harmonious 
and Independent In Itself, has not Its roots 
outside of the thoughts, cognitions. Ideas of 
man, but In them, though not exclusively In 
them. And this applies to Jesus In a special 
degree. To be sure, his word came entirely 
from the depths of his life purely and strictly 
grounded In God; but the manifold fullness 
of his personality, all his humility and all his 
courage, grew up also In the truth which 
filled him and revealed to him God, himself 
and the kingdom of God. His whole soul 
lived in the inner word with which he appre- 
hended this, and In the outer word, In which 
he spoke of It. His speech Is the revelation- 
side of his nature; and whoever approached 
him, must take him at his word. When 
therefore, the question is raised. What Is the 
new in Jesus, we are permitted to seek It, not 
merely naturally, but first of all In his teach- 
ing, Newton revealed the laws of gravita- 
tion ; Kant understood the conscience as the 
categorical Imperative of pure duty; Paul 
presented the idea of justification by faith — 
hut what new thing did Jesus teach lis? 



II 

THE INSUFFICIENT ANSWER 

Belief in the one living God was for a 
long time the peculiar distinction of Judaism 
above other nations. It expressed this belief 
in such form that it asserted a unique com- 
munion-relation between God and itself. 
Even the history of the first Christian church 
shows that it was very hard for many a 
born Jew to divest himself of the idea that 
one must be a Jew in order to be assured of 
the goodness of God. Christianity has fun- 
damentally overcome this natural barrier of 
religion. On this account it is sometimes 
asserted that the originality of its founder 
consisted in this, that he taught that God is 
the shield and keeper not of one people but 
of all men ; with him God is no respecter of 
persons. In those circles in which scientific 
mode of speculation is preached, this con- 
ception is laid aside, especially when it im- 
agines that the significance of Jesus is cre- 
ated by that thought. But, as seems to be, it 
has its great after-effects elsewhere. It is 



The Insufficient Answer .15 

quite natural. Christian belief in God grew 
out of the Jewish; but of the differences 
between the two, the universalist idea of 
the Christian is most obvious. Judaism 
was a national religion. Christianity is a 
world religion. It must therefore be that its 
founder who effected this progress, is a his- 
torical character. One thing also is undoubt- 
edly correct in this conception : From Christ, 
and from no other did early Christianity re- 
ceive courage to offer itself to the heathen 
world, to the cultured and the barbarous. 
Paul is indeed an organ, even the chiefest of 
all for this progress, but he was not its 
author. But the ruling New doctrine, which 
Jesus taught, is not expressed by that 
thought. True, Jesus taught that the world 
is the field in which God soweth his seed of 
the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13. 38) ; he 
prophesied that the kingdom of God should 
be taken from the Jews and be given to the 
Gentiles (Matt. 21. 43; 8. 11- 19). But the 
idea of an international religious communion 
as the ideal of the future, is already met 
with in the Old Testament (Isa. 25. 6; 49. 
6; 60. 3; Micah 4. i seq. ; Zeph. 3. 9; Hag. 
2. 6, 9 ; Zech. 2. 1 1 ) ; it is not even wholly 



1 6 The New Message 

foreign to rabbinic Judaism, and has on the 
other hand in the teaching of Jesus so Httle 
of the strain, that in the conflict between 
Jesus and Judaism, it only cooperated in so 
far as it included the rejection of Israel, that 
is, its exclusion from the world-embracing 
peace of God. Inaccurate observation could 
in our days even lead to the result that uni- 
versalism was entirely foreign to Jesus ; that 
it is far away from forming the nucleus of 
his teaching. 

The mistake with which we had thus far 
to deal has its origin, not so much in certain 
facts from the life-picture of Jesus, as in 
uncertain expressions, which his personality 
brings to bear upon us. From a mistaken 
minimizing of some real traces of his life, 
there arose in the period of the Aufkldrung 
or "illumination" and still arises a different 
conception of the new teaching which he 
brought. Again and again it must be em- 
phasized that Jesus closely connected religion 
with morality. He did it in the sense that 
no piety is of any value which is lacking in 
good works. Most keenly did Jesus express 
this principle when, on the one hand he had 
to deal with the conflict between the sacred 



The Insufficient Answer 17 

ceremonies in the cult concerning the hand 
and mouth, and on the other the simple 
every-day work of love. He denied to the 
former all worth and considered only the 
good deed. The praise of the Samaritan 
who has no part in the sacred sacrificial cult 
of Israel, but saves him that fell among the 
thieves, is at the same time a condemnation 
of the priest, who had behind him a holy 
day's work in "the service of God," but re- 
fuses to help the distressed (Luke 10. 20- 
29). To do good sanctifies the Sabbath 
rather than strict ritual (Matt. 12. 7). Not 
the cry, "Lord, Lord" leads into the kingdom 
of heaven, but the exercise of love, meekness, 
mercy, peace (Matt. 7. 21). 

In all this imperishable truths are given 
to us. But whoever infers from this sub- 
ordination of the cultic work to the good 
deed, that Jesus merged the religious in the 
moral, and that this is his real merit, obtains 
a perfect caricature of him. Those cere- 
monies were a mere manifestation, the mere 
garb of religiousness. Criticism on such 
can therefore also take place in the interest 
of a purification of religion instead of be- 
coming an argument for that conception. 



[1 8 The New Message 

It is not even correct to say, that according 
to Jesus the promotion of the morally good 
in the world is the proper participation in 
the kingdom of God. For, in the first place, 
Jesus is a preacher of religious certainty; 
every moral ideal which he teaches, is de- 
rived from that. Good is that which is done 
in imitation of God, evincing religious be- 
lief in him, in working out a deep sense of 
divine adoption (Matt. 5. 48). Had Jesus 
taught as the Aufkldrung or "illumina- 
tion" often imagined, had he really elimi- 
nated the mystic, condemned the withdrawal 
of piety to monastic retreats and put the 
true love to man, or even the service of 
culture in the forefront, certainly, in the 
surroundings in which he lived and in the 
entire historical movement into which he en- 
tered, this were something perfectly new, 
something unheard of, and our questions 
were soon answered. But the real Jesus has 
not the least to do with the notion that be- 
neficence not prayer is the characteristic of 
the true Christian fashioned after Jesus. 

Thus far we have swung round the utter- 
most circle beyond which are notions which 
must be rejected from the start, provided 



The Insufficient Answer 19 

one will come to the point. We are not the 
only ones who reject them; any competent 
judge will do so. But within that circle 
there is still room enough for very different 
views; and the present time is the least 
unanimous concerning what propositions 
shall be agreed upon. Yea, its whole inner 
confusion is connected with this, that in the 
question — what new teaching has Jesus 
given to the world — it cannot obtain a uni- 
form point of view. 

In his Wesen der Religion (1903) 
Bousset described the position of Jesus 
within the religious historical development 
of humanity and especially of Israel. Ac- 
cording to him Jesus freed religion from the 
national and ceremonial, but also from be- 
lief in the letter — not by violent destruction 
of the old, not by tenet and theories, but by 
unchaining a new spirit of inwardness and 
personality. His piety embraced a less as 
against the sum of a thousand single deeds 
and single acts, with which Judaism had 
connected the worship of God ; which by be- 
ing simpler, was at the same time deeper. 
Such piety rests on the fear of the almighty 
God; but from it rises victorious trust in 



20 The New Message 

God as the Father, Creator, Upholder and 
Preserver of our higher spiritually personal 
existence, the gracious friend of sinners; 
and it exhausts itself in moral fruitfulness, 
which comes from the expectation of judg- 
ment before the eternal Judge. Moral, re- 
deeming religion — to state it in the full clear- 
ness and simplicity of its nature^ — that is the 
originality of the preaching of Jesus. In 
its center "stands belief in the deliverance 
and unchaining of the good will through the 
forgiveness of sins.''^ Quite a number of 
recent descriptions of the teaching and per- 
son of Jesus move in a like sphere of 
thought. Otto praises Jesus of Nazareth 
as the awakener of inward piety and the dis- 
coverer of moral personality.^ Julicher 
teaches that Jesus gave to the world a new 
ideal of morality ; unselfish love, and a new 
ideal of piety, joyous belief in the Father in 
heaven.^ Harnack also belongs here.* He 
distinguishes — wholly in the sense of our 
inquiry on the preaching and ideas of Jesus 
— things which he had in common with his 



1 Bousset, Jestis, 1904, p. 79. 

2Leben und Werken Jesti, 1905. 

3 Das Messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesus, 1903. 

* Wesen des Christenthums, 1900, p. S3 seq. 



The Insufficient Answer 21 

contemporaries, and things which were 
peculiar to him. The latter are the really- 
valuable in him. And it is in this that by- 
divesting himself of everything particular 
and legal, he led men to God and taught 
them to live in him as their Father; to 
bring about in this communion of their 
soul with God the theocracy; to lift them- 
selves up to inner strength and a world- 
overcoming independence in the certainty 
of the forgiveness of sins ; to perceive in life 
and death the hand of the living God and his 
providence; to make humility before God 
the source of everything good in pure love 
to men. In his new knowledge of God, 
which did not exist before, consists the pe- 
culiar life-content, which Jesus asserts of 
himself under the idea of divine Sonship. 
Less easily than those mentioned above, 
Pfleiderer gets over the fact that Jesus en- 
riched his self-consciousness with the full 
realization of ideas of his Messiahship and 
as judge of the world. But he also sees the 
real importance of the person of Jesus in 
this, that he proclaimed the ideal of the 
government of God^ in the hearts of his chil- 

iThis was also the everrectirring idea of Renan. — Editor. 



22 The New Message 

dren and in the fellowship of his Kingdom.* 
The idea of perfect spiritually moral religion 
is accordingly the new teaching. But this 
in so far as it advanced to clearness and 
power was an anticipation and impulse al- 
ready dormant in humanity in general.^ 

What have all these conceptions in com- 
mon? Humanity was a long time already 
on the way seeking God; but Jesus dis- 
covered him for humanity and expressed in 
his teaching that which he found, whom he 
found. By that he revealed to humanity 
what genuine belief in God is and what true 
love is ; showed it in its full purity and gave 
it to humanity for an everlasting possession. 
He is accordingly that organ through which 
humanity made the most decisive advance 
in the development of its relation to God, or, 
more correctly, obtained the height of per- 
fection. The new which Jesus brought lies 
therefore in the sphere of the subjective or 
inner conditionality of humanity. It there- 
by remains though one closes not his eyes 
to the discernment that all advances of his- 



1 Die Entstehung der Christenthums, 1905, p. 61 seq. 

2 Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens in reli- 
gionsgeschichtlichen Beleuchtung, 1903. 



The Insufficient Answer 23 

tory, and therefore all that is effected by 
Jesus, took place under the inspiration of a 
divine life. 

It is true, that in Jesus Christ the reve- 
lation of God consummated itself, but this 
revelation is the awakening of perfect piety 
of heart in man. With these fundamental 
ideas the discussed conception comes forth 
from the isolation in which we have thus 
far considered it, as one diffused at pres- 
ent, and to the final point of a long series 
of opinions concerning Jesus which, in spite 
of all variety, agree in this, that the dis- 
tinguishing mark of Jesus relating to his 
teaching, is comprised in the doctrine of 
the purification of the moral or religious 
idea of humanity. Thus Schleiermacher 
measured the perfection of the teaching of 
Jesus by this, that he actively expressed in 
it his original and creative divine conscious- 
ness with the intention that it should be ap- 
propriated by men.^ There exists a chasm be- 
tween Schleiermacher's theology and that of 
old "illumination." He knew better than this, 
and the newest theology following his traces 
knows how to appreciate the creative power 

1 Der Christliche Glaube, p. 103. 



24 The New Message 

which emanates from Jesus; also to seek 
reHgion not in correct ideas of the human 
mind about God, but in hearts moved by the 
spirit of God, the spirit of love. Neverthe- 
less, there is something in common between 
him and the old illumination which bridges 
this chasm. It lies in the direction which 
engages us. For even the "illumination" of 
the eighteenth century recognized the im- 
portance of Jesus in this that he developed 
and transformed the religious possession of 
humanity. In his Education of the Human 
Race (p. 58) Lessing himself calls Christ 
the first trustworthy, practical teacher of the 
immortality of the soul. But in the main 
this is only an arbitrary limitation, a taking 
out of a single sentence from a comprehen- 
sive conception which Bretschneider thus 
expressed : "With reference to his teaching, 
Jesus retained the general religious teach- 
ings of the Old Testament and confirmed 
them; and changed and rejected only such 
statements which were hurtful to morality, 
or would prevent the essence of religion, es- 
pecially the merit of sacrifices, of the many 
daily prayers, of Levitical purification, the 
burdensome ceremonial service, resting on 



The Insufficient Answer 25 

tradition, and the narrow, bigoted notion of 
the Jews, that God is their natural God who 
loves them only and hates all other nations. 
In the main he confirmed and purified the 
doctrine of God as Spirit, who is to be wor- 
shiped in spirit, as Father of all men; who 
wishes to bless all, give life to all; of his 
wise providence ruling all men; of immor- 
tality and moral retribution on this side and 
on the other side of the grave; and taught 
at the same time, a virtue which is to come 
from a pure source — the love to God and 
man and which is founded on the natural 
disposition of man, is able to develop the 
humane or, if one will, the divine in man 
without ascetic aberration."^ Finally — with 
all his opposition to the mere rationalism of 
the ''illumination" — we must here also men- 
tion Herder. As he understands Christ he 
meant to fashion men of God, who from pure 
motives promoted the welfare of others and 
self-suffering ruled as kings in the kingdom 
of truth and goodness.^ 

Who could deny the truth in all this! 
Christendom will always insist that we must 

1 Handbuch der Dogmatik, ii, p. 153. 

2 Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte, xvii, introduction. 



26 The New Message 

seek in the word of Jesus the norm 
for religious service in spirit and in truth, 
and it will never cease to derive from it liv- 
ing impulses in that direction. But we must 
not forget the question, whether the new 
which Jesus brought, is already described 
exhaustively, yea, whether in that which 
Jesus taught in that direction, something 
really and fundamentally new, is given at 
all. There is a method of consideration 
which the second form, of this question, 
also, not only puts but at once denies. It is 
that of modern Judaism which strives after 
an ethical deepening of the religious life yet 
retains the connection with the ancestral 
faith. With a certain pride the boast is 
made that the religious development of Is- 
rael received no impression from Jesus of 
Nazareth ; yea, that it did not even need It. 
The picture we are told which the New Tes- 
tament gives of rabblnism which was con- 
temporaneous with Jesus, Is wrong and oiie- 
sided; this rabblnism has actually In Itself 
quite sufficient forces of religious Inward- 
ness and civilization; to all the much-ad- 
mired sayings of the Nazarene on the spir- 
ituality and simplicity of religion and a' 



The Insufficient Answer 27 

religion of love parallels could be adduced 
from the Jewish ideas of that time and its 
literature. Finally this critique goes so far 
as to show that Jesus was not very original, 
yea, that in many respects he was a product 
of the overstrainings and doubtful aberra- 
tions of this inner- Jewish development ; that 
he represents no new type at all/'^ 

The controversy concerns the contrast 
between Jesus and scribism, not Judaism in 
general. Alongside of scribism many re- 
ligious movements existed in Judaism at 
that time. There was not wanting a sub- 
tilizing enlightenment, nor a popularly naive 
distortion of religion to an empty exter- 
nality, childlike, cherishing fantastic and fa- 
natical hopes of the future. Over against 
this scribism was the theologically guarded 
and regulated religion. We know this reli- 
gion from the vast literature of the Talmud 
and like productions. In them is deposited in 
bee-like manner all the additional religious 
matter, namely, the revelation of God in the 

1 The latest effort of such a proof on the Jewish side is by 
Dr. J. Eschelbacher, Das Judentum und das Wesen des 
Christenthums (Schriften der Gesellschaft zur Forderung 
der Wissenschaft des Judentums) , Berlin, 1905. [See also 
The Jewish Encyclopedia, Article Jesus. — Editor.] 



28 The New Message 

law and the prophets which rabbinism ap- 
propriated from the theological and religious 
movements in different centuries. From 
thence came the parallels between the words 
of Jesus and rabbinic statements referred 
to before, which are to refute the origin- 
ality of Jesus. They certainly exist and 
are related to the linguistic form, to the way 
of forming ideas, to the thoughts them- 
selves. But in not a few instances this con- 
cord loses its force, because the Jewish-rab- 
binical material for comparison is evidently 
of later origin than the word of Jesus. Thus, 
for example, surprising proofs from ancient 
Jewish prayers can indeed be collected for 
the Lord's Prayer ; but the traces of their ex- 
istence belong to the second century A.D. 
In other cases the individual statement in 
the mouth of the rabbi shows, at the first 
glance indeed, a very strong resemblance to 
the word of Jesus ; but a closer examination 
perceives an essential difference of ethico- 
religious force between both.^ 

1 This refers, for example, to the word of rabbi Hillel (75 
B.C.-io A.D.) : "What is hateful to thee, do not unto 
thy neighbor." Hillel is said to have called this " the 
whole law." This word is usually quoted as parallel to 
the word of Jesus in Matt. 7. 12. But what a difference! 



The Insufficient Answer 29 

But for our part we should not go so 
far as to deny every inner relation between 
Jesus and scribism where the originality 
is not entirely on the side of Jesus. Jesus 
during his early development must have 
lived so isolated, as in fact he did not, 
that he could not have heard and learned 
something from rabbinism which was found 
everywhere. And this would have been so 
void of the spirit that it could not otherwise 
but coin the gold committed to it in such 
alloy that of the original precious metal 
hardly a trace were to be perceived. Even 
the New Testament itself, which on the 
whole gives a very horrible picture of rab- 
binism, teaches us in this sense. In Nico- 
demus it certainly shows an inwardly dis- 
posed scribe (John 3. 1-9). The lawyer, 
also, of whom Luke 10. 25 speaks, was a 
rabbi. To the question of Jesus as to the 
way of salvation, he gives a clear answer 
and is praised by the Lord. Even in his 
severe address against the scribes and Phari- 
sees (Matt. 23), Jesus — for the time being 



Hillers nile says: Never do anything to thy neighbor, 
namely, nothing bad. Jesus said : Do always something 
to thy neighbor, but plainly good. 



30 The New Message 

at least — considers their teaching as still 
being a guide to piety. All this is good, but 
the New Testament shows also something 
else. It shows that Jesus could well solve the 
theological problems of the rabbis (Matt. 
22. 15-40), but that on the other hand, they 
had no understanding for his deep and deep- 
est thoughts (Matt 22. 41 ; John 3. 10). It 
shows that that very lawyer had no concep- 
tion how to apply practically his beautiful 
knowledge (Luke 10. 29). It shows no less 
that scribism had lost the right estimate of 
essential and non-essential things (Matt. 23. 
23). They had the law and the prophets; 
but under the hand of the scribes it was the 
consummation of the prophetical spirit which 
resulted at last only in deadening forms of 
intrinsic law, continually commented upon. 
Extrabiblical sources confirm this view 
as to negative result. The exactness of the 
nature of true piety and morality was ren- 
dered coarse in rabbinism. In none of the 
scribes do we meet with a personality in 
which the religious idea, in its original purity 
and creative depth and in its directing en- 
ergy, had been apprehended and expressed 
with such instructive power concerning the 



J^i 



(The Insufficient Answer 31 

iemancipation and separation of the essential 
and non-essential, as in Jesus. There deep, 
sinking words form an exceptional phenome- 
non. In Jesus the expression of living belief 
in God and of love forms the rule, the whole. 
To scribism appertained religious serious- 
ness in a high degree ; but its demeanor and 
teaching lacked cheerfulness and simplicity. 

In the controversy before us we cannot but 
declare that Jesus is clearly distinguished 
from contemporaneous scribism and that he 
represents a new phenomenon. He is thus 
marked off first of all by the peculiar creative 
power of his personality. But as a matter 
of course, this peculiarity also shows itself in 
his teaching; and for this we need not seek 
long. We find it in the boundlessness with 
which he radiates love into all distances of 
humanity and into all depths of self-denial ; 
in the inexorableness of moral energy with 
reference to his demands for a God-related 
disposition; in the certainty with which he 
binds the communion with God — not to re- 
ligious intellectual refinement — ^but to child- 
like simplicity of the heart. The rabbis and 
he both spoke of the Father in heaven and of 
love to one's neighbor ; but Jesus meant this 



32 The New Message 

and that in an entirely different, in a more 
direct, sense than they did. 

But with this result we are not yet at the 
end of our question. In the distance between 
Jesus and the scribes as representatives of 
the rehgious thought in Israel, there works 
a factor common tO' both. He and they were 
spiritually fed on the fruits of the inner his- 
tory of the old covenant, the Old Testament. 
One can indeed inquire into the relation of 
Jesus to the rabbis by asking whether he did 
not intend to reduce religion free from all ac- 
cessories to the simple, great characteristic 
features, which Israel's prophecy had 
stamped it. For matchless, indeed, in the 
whole history of the mental life of humanity 
is this phenomenon in the religious develop- 
ment of Israel. With quiet certainty, with 
all zeal against perversion and abuse, with 
instinctive power these heroes of the Holy 
Spirit rise and release the simple, clear, liv- 
ing ideal of sincerest fear of God, of pure, 
earnest morality from the multifariousness 
of transmitted customs, from superstitious 
distortion and wanton perversion. They 
know God as the mighty Lord, the everlast- 
ing friend, the merciful Father of Israel 



The Insufficient Answer 33 

^(Isa. 63. 16), and they wait for a time when 
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
the Lord, of this Lord, as the waters cover 
the sea. Every practice of the cult, ever so 
carefully done, is of no value to them; yea 
it is sin in their estimation, unless it is ani- 
mated by living obedience to the holy will of 
God (Isa. I. 10-17). With glad faith they 
bind the bond between the Lord, who dwells 
in the high and holy place, and those who 
are of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57. 
15). They praise the happiness of the 
people and of the individuals who have found 
their refuge in God's comfort and mercy 
(Isa. 12. 1-6; 40. 31). Kind love for the 
distressed and justice to all is in their eyes 
the ornament of the pious (Micah 6. 8). In 
a regeneration of the deepest character 
they see the salvation of the future (Jer. 31. 
31 ; Ezek. 36. 26 seq.). If this is the peculiar 
greatness of the preaching of the prophets 
and, if, on the other hand, with the views of 
modern and older theologians before stated, 
the compass or contents of the teaching of 
Jesus is exhausted, the looked-f or definition 
of the relation between Jesus and the scribes, 
now follows. His independence over against 



34 The New Message 

them is rooted in this, that he was able to 
renew with sympathetic power, the prophet- 
ical, fundamental thoughts. This conclusion 
is certainly comprehensible. 

But, from another direction, we get into 
greater trouble. Is not then the new which 
Jesus taught merely a renewal of the old? 
Wherein differs the teaching of Jesus as 
something new from the teaching of the 
prophets? If there exists no clear and 
worthy answer to that, the question is very 
pertinent whether we do not wrong those 
worthies of the old covenant by the sole 
prominence given to Jesus as the true seeker 
and knower of God ? Jesus indeed absolves 
us from such a mistake ; he asserted nothing 
less than the immense distance between him- 
self and the prophets before him; for *^all 
the prophets and the law prophesied until 
John," and "among them that are born of 
women there hath not risen a greater than 
John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that 
is least in the kingdom of heaven [which 
Jesus announces] is greater than he" (Matt. 
11.11,13). 

But wherein consists this greater, this 
new? The theologians, whose school we 



The Insufficient Answer 35 

have thus far attended, would presumably 
not approve of it, if we should say : the new 
consists in this, that Jesus, stronger by far 
than those prophets, yea, exclusively em- 
phasized the relation of God to the indi- 
vidual. The prophets do not entirely rid 
themselves of a glance at the nation and the 
limitations connected with it. Jesus, how- 
ever, awarded to each individual soul of man, 
in whatever body it was, an infinite value, 
by relating to that very individual God's 
purpose of salvation. According to this in- 
dividualism, the sense of personality, were the 
real new things in the teaching of Jesus. But 
this boundary between Jesus and prophecy 
is in the first instance only valid in a limited 
degree. The Psalms, this poetical echo of 
the prophetic revelation of God, very clearly 
show that even in that Old Testament piety, 
the certainty of an immediate relation of the 
individual with God strongly existed, and 
Jesus also declared that the union of the 
pious in a congregation ever so little is also 
the place of a special work of God's work of 
grace and of himself (Matt. 18. 19). 

Nevertheless there exists a perceptible dif- 
ference here also between Jesus and the 



36 The New Message 

prophets. But in the second place it is not 
wrongly referred to, that this difference has 
its basis in the different times. When the 
prophets spoke, Israel was a nation with a 
political present and future, a common- 
wealth; when Jesus spoke, it was a pre- 
eminently religious community. As a matter 
of course there the whole, here, however, the 
individual, came to the foreground. Such 
being the case, the new in Jesus is then 
not his most original work, but the form 
conditioned by outward circumstances 
which, for good or evil, his preaching must 
assume. Jesus could not possibly have so 
aroused the conscience of the Roman 
procurator, at least with reference to the 
religious and moral regulation of the life 
of the Jewish people, as the prophets once 
did the native kings. Thus his authority 
naturally turned to the individual. Whether 
this should be accounted to him as special 
merit may perhaps be doubtful. Yea, some 
have even pointed out that in this we may 
see a certain restriction with Jesus; quite 
different from him the prophets knew to 
assert the fear of God as the leaven of public 
life. 



iThe Insufficient Answer 37 

It is clear that on this way we do not get 
very far. On this account one can under- 
stand that many seek the solution in a funda- 
mentally different direction. They deny that 
Jesus taught something very special and 
original ; in the main they consider his teach- 
ing as mere renewal of the best prophetical 
thoughts. But nevertheless Jesus appears 
to them as new, as never before existing, 
creative, original in the highest sense. For 
no one like him has ever filled those thoughts 
with the vigor of life and converted that life 
into holy reality. Every chasm between 
thought and deed is overcome in him; not 
like ourselves did he have to toil up from 
contrasts to perfect God-inwardness; for 
ever and ever, and fully and wholly, it filled 
him with purity and power. 

We are far from finding fault with this 
matter of fact. For to everyone who de- 
voutly brings before his eyes the life-picture 
of Jesus in its real and full content, it has 
something humiliating and at the same time 
uplifting; it overcomes his heart. But the 
more seriously must we ask whether from the 
basis of the hitherto existing assumptions, 
the retreat to this last position can really be 



38 The New Message 

accomplished without defeat. For thus far 
we have worked from that point of view of 
consideration which the "modern/' "Hberal/' 
"negative/' or with whatever more or less 
appropriate name it may be called, this very- 
theology assigns to us. It teaches us to seek 
out in Jesus — ^in his word or in his person — 
the, for the first time, perfect realization of 
complete religion. We have already ex- 
amined above whether and in how far, in 
face of certain objections on the part of the 
Jews, this point of view can be asserted, as 
if the religious thought which Jesus ex- 
pressed were nothing original. But we must 
now remember another, more serious, ob- 
jection from that quarter. Modern Jewish 
criticism on Jesus and his relation to rabbin- 
ism, that is, on the life-picture which the 
most recent Protestant theology sketches of 
Jesus, expresses itself thus: "The Nazarene 
was in the beginning impregnated by the 
serious and pure thoughts of God, as rabbin- 
ism also' represented them ; but gradually his 
inner consciousness became disturbed; he 
adopted the Messiah-idea; got into fanciful 
expectation of the future, and the more Juda- 
ism withdrew from him on that account the 



•The Insufficient Answer 39 

more he got himself into an inner excite- 
ment, that he forgot the differences between 
God and man and assigned to himself a place 
and work at the right hand of God." It is con- 
sequently denied that Jesus was able to retain 
in himself the purity and depth of the God- 
idea to the end; his Messianic claim is ex- 
plained as a darkening, which refers to his 
person as well as to his teaching; he thereby 
gave cause for the Christ-belief with all its 
sequences. In short, Jesus denotes in reality, 
in the very peculiarity of his personal de- 
meanor, a painful obscuring of the pure 
knowledge of God. The new in him is, 
therefore, alas! something little pleasing. 

Thus Jewish criticism. Can modern the- 
ology resist it for its conception ? We must 
answer this question unth all emphasis and 
seriousness in the negative. This theology 
also knows and cannot deny, that Jesus 
ascribes to himself a very peculiar position 
in the kingdom of God ; that he spoke of his 
resurrection and coming again in glory ; that 
he made the claim once to judge the world. 
It knows his word : "I am — namely Christ, 
the Son of the Blessed — and ye shall see the 
Son of man sitting on the right hand of 



40 The New Message 

power, and coming in the clouds of heaven'' 
(Mark 14. 62). By way of criticism it does 
indeed what it can to minimize the sum total 
of the testimony of Jesus in this respect ; but 
it fails to eradicate it radically. And why 
does it wish to be released from that testi- 
mony? I believe that none of the theo- 
logians mentioned before, and many others 
beside them, will or can seriously complain 
when we answer: Because they are con- 
vinced that that claim of Jesus is not opposed 
by a corresponding reality. According to 
their conception Jesus is historically acting 
in a very quick and fruitful manner, more 
fruitful than any other hero of history, but 
he sits not in personal and unique activity 
on the right hand of God and he comes not 
to judge the world. What task is now be- 
fore them? This: to explain how Jesus 
could arrive at that bold, strange idea con- 
cerning himself, without their troubling the 
purity and simplicity of his humanity and 
belief in God. But this problem is unsolvable 
and a certain feeling, the impossibility of 
solving it, has called forth efforts to explain 
the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus in gen- 
eral as a later fiction. One might almost 



The Insufficient Answer 41 

say with bitter jest, that on no point is that 
modern theology so harmonious as on this, 
how the Messianic self-consciousness of 
Jesus is to be understood. We hear it on all 
sides ; this consciousness was a form in which 
Jesus had to imagine himself, because no 
other idea existed in Israel by means of 
which he could make intelligible to himself 
and others his unique calling — to be teacher 
and representative of a perfect religion ; but 
when fate was threatening and held out pros- 
pects of his own personal destruction, he 
clung to the Messianic hope, and, by its appli- 
cation to himself, he stamped the conviction 
that his word and his activity are imperish- 
able. In short, the conviction of the divinity 
of his causey he coupled with the auxiliary 
notion of the divinity of his person. That is 
the kernel, this is the shell ; that the lasting 
essence, this the perishable form; that the 
world-receiving truth, this the fatal error of 
Jesus. Well, let it be so ; but then the harm- 
lessness with which many understand this 
Jesus is entirely inexcusable. How? Jesus 
had to take to his help that Messianic notion, 
in order to proclaim the greatness of his 
cause. And why? Because it existed in 



42 The New Message 

Israel ? But Jesus worked out a very differ- 
ent Messianic hope from that which existed 
in Israel; one so widely antagonistic, that 
he was condemned to death by the Jews be- 
cause of this opposition and for no other 
reason. So little familiar was this Messiah- 
picture at that time in the sphere in which 
Jesus moved, that not even the God-enlight- 
ened prophet, John the Baptist, could ac- 
commodate himself to it without victory 
over himself. And could Jesus, only in this 
way, bring the conviction of his unique call- 
ing into a certain form of thought ? But he 
had for this conviction the setting of proph- 
etism — a clear, grand, living phenomenon — 
which would have been sufficient for his self- 
characterization, if his calling needed this, to 
express the essence of the perfect fear of 
God and the love of God. How ? Must he 
put himself by the side of God, to assert his 
word as God's word? But in truth it be- 
longs already to the foundations of every 
mental greatness of a man, that he is able 
to distinguish between person and object. 
Religion, however, has directly a proof of 
its genuineness in that the more it receives 
of God, and the higher the calling with 



The Insufficient Answer 43 

which it is entrusted, the more earnestly and 
surely and strictly does it experience the dif- 
ference between God's greatness and man's 
lowliness. Beyond these simple facts none 
of those modern efforts can bring us to ex- 
plain the Messianic self-consciousness of 
Jesus, no matter how much it may seem to 
summon ever so great psychological skill 
and sensitiveness. This Jesus had rather to 
be delivered from himself, and modern the- 
ology has finally rendered him this perfect 
service. Heretofore we restricted ourselves 
into seeking the nevv^ in Jesus of Xazareth 
in the full purity and simplicity of his per- 
sonal life-contents, in order not to suft'er him 
to become a mere disciple of the prophets; 
this road is now impassable for us. 

Consequently the matter now stands thus : 
We started from a certain supposition and 
assumed hypothetically, that the new in Jesus 
consisted in this or was limited to this ; that 
he developed religion to perfect imvardness, 
truth and morality. We endeavored to up- 
hold this supposition against objections 
which were raised this way or that way ; but 
every path which we took for this purpose 
finally led us into the dark. One cannot 



44 The New Message 

understand Jesus as a great and new phe- 
nomenon in itself, still less as the center of 
the history of religion, so long as one accepts 
another view of his historical activity than 
that expressed in the alleged supposition. 
And yet Jesus himself was definitely sep- 
arated from everything which went before 
him and from everything which follows him. 
Wherein then lies the new doctrine which 
he taught ? 



Ill 

THE TRUE ANSWER 

What did Jesus really teach? "The time 
is, fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at 
hand: repent ye, and believe the gospeF' 
(Mark i. 15; Matt. 4. 17). For the 
understanding of this word one must cling 
to the idea "kingdom of God," and to 
define its content according to the sense 
of Jesus in contradistinction to the common 
Jewish notions thereof. This work is im- 
portant and is remunerative. But it must 
also not be overlooked that in his preaching, 
when speaking of the kingdom of God, 
Jesus does not come forth as with a per- 
fectly new matter, but he supposes in his 
hearers an idea and elementary notion 
thereof. It may be that the idea needed 
correction, but it nevertheless existed. The 
emphasis therefore, in that scripture sen- 
tence is not at all on the object of the 
statement, but on the statement itself: "a^ 
hand'' is the kingdom of God. With much 
emphasis this very statement runs through 



46 The New Message 

the entire preaching of Jesus. It appears in 
the height of his activity; with it he sends 
his disciples into the cities and villages of 
the Jews (Matt. lo. 7). Its sound is heard 
in the solemn hours of the last days of Jesus, 
and becomes a comfort and blissful hope 
(Luke 21. 31). Certainly "at hand'' by no 
means denotes plainly it is here. It denotes 
as much as "come nigh.'' And this does not 
preclude the petition for its real and final 
coming (Matt. 6. 10). This "being near" 
can even protract itself and offer yet the 
opportunity to exercise one's self in expecta- 
tion and longing. And yet it is a word of 
very great weight, this "it is at hand." For 
it says, "that the kingdom of God" — who 
knows how long and how far it has been dis- 
tant from Israel, that it is now in motion 
and has now overcome this distance, so much 
so that it is immediately before the door; 
that a thin covering has only to fall off and 
its full glory be seen in the midst of the 
world. Yea, the thought can increase to 
the immediate certainty, that the kingdom 
of God is here; that it broke in with force 
(Matt. 12. 28 and 11. 12, in which place it 
must be translated : the kingdom of heaven 



The True Answer 47 

sets In with force) — so energetically the no- 
tion of the decisive advancement of the 
kingdom of God is contained in that "at 
hand." Is this now a nevv^ teaching? No. 
For teaching is something theoretical, a 
statement on conditions remaining the same, 
which are not yet fully perceived, or which 
are to be defined clearly, or appropriated by 
the older generation to the thought of the 
younger. That word denotes nothing of 
the kind. That sentence is a statement that 
in the great world of realities, of the highest 
realities, something has changed ; something 
new, great, glorious has come to pass and 
comes to pass. This is no teaching, but a 
message. A new message of the great deeds 
of God — this is the new in the teaching of 
Jesus. That on the strength of that, men 
may and must change, deepen, familiarize 
their knowledge of God ; that they may have 
to transform and purify their moral concep- 
tions in accordance with the new knowledge, 
all this to be sure is necessarily associated 
with it. 

On this account Jesus adds also to the 
message the appeal: "Repent," that is, 
change your disposition and believe the gos- 



48 The New Message 

pel. But Jesus would have never made these 
new demands had he not been in a position 
to give them a living relation to the new 
message, which fell from his lips. Hence all 
those difficulties which we dealt with above 
vanish because we had adopted a supposition 
in which that word "is at hand" had not been 
fully appreciated. Now, however, the dif- 
ference between Jesus and rabbinism be- 
comes clear and great at the same time. The 
scribes had also spoken of the kingdom of 
God; in many respects they differed from 
Jesus, but this is not the most important ; the 
most important was that they knew nothing 
of it and had nothing to say; that now, just 
now, this kingdom of God makes its be- 
ginning with power. Furthermore, Jesus 
also stands out clearly enough from the 
prophets. They spoke in general, at least not 
as yet, of a kingdom of God ; but though the 
word was foreign to them, they nevertheless 
had in them a living hope of a future in 
which God would be present in Israel as 
helper. But it was only a hope, and Peter 
strikingly points out how they had to be 
satisfied to read in this who knows how dis- 
tant a future (i Pet. i. 10-12) ! Jesus how- 



The True Answer 49 

ever comes forth and proclaims : *^The time 
is fulfilled." Thus that simple observa- 
tion frees us from serious difficulties which 
formerly seemed insuperable. And concern- 
ing the last and highest, the supernatural 
self-appreciation which Jesus bestowed upon 
himself — it may yet possibly clear up in its 
harmony with Jesus's purest humility and 
simplicity, when we consider a little closer 
this his new message. 

''The kingdom of God is at handf' In 
our consideration we get the advantage over 
the perplexed question — what this kingdom 
is and what individual signs are contained in 
its idea, and how they adjust themselves, by 
drawing the simple inference, that in the 
kingdom of God, God himself exercises his 
active sovereign-presence. Where the king- 
dom of heaven is not, God is not, or, is at 
least not so present as he is in his kingdom. 
This is perhaps a bold thought but it is un- 
avoidably contained in that sentence. Our 
idea of God and already also that of the 
Jews, could and certainly can surrender the 
thought of God not as present and efficient 
everywhere. But when we wish to think 
with Jesus, we must distinguish this omni- 



50 The New Message 

presence of God from a special kind of his 
existence in the world. It consists in this 
that he is present not merely as Lord, ruler 
and preserver of life, but as Redeemer, 
Helper and miracle-worker. With rejoicing 
Israel knew itself from times of old, as the 
sphere of such special gracious activity of 
God, and Jesus fully confirmed this claim; 
for the God, of whom he speaks, he knows 
and affirms as the God of the forefathers of 
Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ja- 
cob in a sense in which he offered not him- 
self as God to any other nation and their 
ancestors (Matt. 22, 32). Thus the world 
separates into two uneven parts; the large 
one when, to speak with Paul, God suffers 
the nations to walk in their own ways, not 
without leaving himself a witness (Acts 
14. 16) ; and the smaller, when God puts in 
motion redeeming- forces of a new, incom- 
prehensible kind. But the message of Jesus 
urges us farther on. For in this narrower 
sphere it places over against the present 
when God has drawn near, a past in which 
God, in spite of all, is still far off, relatively 
distant, and was only about to come near to 
Israel from such a distance. As concerns 



The True Answer 51 

space and time, the attitude of God toward 
his world differs ; but the message of Jesus 
says that now and in Israel is the time and 
the place where this attitude of God ex- 
presses itself most peculiarly and vitally in 
its singular manner, that now the kingdom 
of God is at hand. Once more then: not 
what must change and become new in men 
in the depths of their minds, but that some- 
thing changes and becomes new from God ; 
this is the nucleus of the message of Jesus. 
Thus far we have moved in very general 
statements concerning this remarkable new 
work in and of God. It is fascinating to 
follow the development of this new message 
in the preaching of Jesus. When Jesus 
preached in Nazareth, his native town, he 
gave as it were, a commentary to that mes- 
sage of the arrival of the kingdom of God. 
From the prophet Isaiah he read: "The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to 
the poor ; he hath set me to heal the broken- 
hearted; to preach deliverance to the cap- 
tives, and recovering of sight to the blind; 
to set at liberty them that are bruised; to 
preach the acceptable year of the Lord/' 



52 The New Message 

and added^ being himself moved by this pow- 
erful promise: "This day is this scripture 
fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4. 18-21). This 
— "it is fulfilled'' — springs from the like- 
energetic certainty to that of "is at hand." 
Thus that present nearness and presence of 
God also consists in this, that that which now 
takes place, or commences to take place, is 
that which was promised by the prophet. 
But can one command the blind that they 
see? No. Therefore it is also not the de- 
mand of a new human attitude, the longing 
of a self-deliverance with which God now 
comes to man. But God has decided now 
to do something on his part which he did not 
before; to perform great deliverance-deeds 
and works of healing on them that are 
bruised and miserable. In quite the same 
sense Jesus answered the doubting or urging 
John in the message of the deliverances 
which now take place and are to take place 
(Matt. II. 5). This power of help is the 
violence with which the kingdom of heaven 
now advances (Matt. 11. 12). From this, 
that Jesus delivers those miserable demoniacs 
from their tormentors, every one can per- 
ceive that the kingdom of God is come 



The True Answer 53 

(Luke II. 20). The kingdom of God is 
therefore the strong finger which God lifts 
up to drive away the enemies ; it is the help- 
ing hand which he stretches out to save the 
corrupted; it is the power, the victorious 
war with which God comes upon the palace 
of the "strong man/' the prince of this 
world, to wrest from him his spoils (Luke 
II. 19). The kingdom of God is the re- 
demption which bids every one to whom it 
comes to gladly lift up his head (Luke 21. 
28) ; it is the banquet which God prepared 
long ago and now gives, to gather the 
hungry and wretched that they may enjoy 
it (Matt. 22. 2). Jesus passes through the 
country and wherever he is, help and salva- 
tion spring under his hands; but whatever 
he does, it is only as it were in illustration of 
his message of the kingdom of God; a few 
fragments from the totality of a compre- 
hensive divine deed of salvation. Of what 
kind it is can be more clearly defined. In 
the beginning of his ministry, according to 
John 3, Jesus had that nocturnal conversa- 
tion with Nicodemus. There the question 
was likewise of the kingdom of God. But 
God manifests not his highest energies in 



54 The New Message 

outward life but in this — that he grants the 
spirit of regeneration. With this thought a 
new series of pictures and revelations opens. 
The kingdom of God is the water of life 
which God now suffers to bubble, to quench 
the thirst forever; it is the bread of life 
from heaven to keep off death (John 6. 32 
seq.) ; a good fruitful seed which God scat- 
ters over the field of the world (Matt. 13. 
24 seq.) ; the leaven which is mixed into the 
meal of the human race (Matt. 13. 33). 
And, if one wishes to include the whole in a 
narrower compass, let him say: the new, 
which God does sow in order to realize that 
approach of himself and of his kingdom, is 
this — that he gets ready to bring about the 
precious sum of promises which Jesus prom- 
ised in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the 
Mount (Matt. 5. 3-12). The highest treas- 
ures of his life and his love God has kept 
under lock and key till then; now he opens 
them up and a fullness of help, consolation 
and blessing runs through the poor world 
to redeem it — this is the meaning of the 
new message which Jesus brings. 

There may be a view of God and the 
world to which such a thought may be unin- 



The True Answer 55 

telligible. That God moves from a *not 
yet!' to a ^nowT; that he himself passes 
through the difference of darkness and mani- 
festation, of silence and speech, of design 
and deed, of quiet looking on and energetic 
grasping, is very inconceivable. It knows 
indeed a progress, but this belongs entirely 
to humanity; its ability to embrace God in 
himself increases, not however the desire of 
God to come out of himself. And, even if 
this were so, it is still no new relation which 
he gives to the world, but even the one, orig- 
inal and unchangeable, that of being the 
mental life-foundation of the world. But 
though the view opposed to this may com- 
prise ever so many difficulties — this changes 
nothing of the fact, that Jesus expressly 
uttered it, yea, that he inseparably connected 
it with the new message which he brought. 

But, may this message really be considered 
as new and as peculiar to Jesus ? Thus we 
must ask once again. For according to the 
record of Matthew, John the Baptist already 
preached before Jesus : "Repent ye ; for the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3. 2) . 
With this we stand indeed on firm, historical 
ground ; for according to Jesus's own word, 



56 The New Message 

the special greatness of the Baptist consisted 
in this, that he was allowed to proclaim that 
message immediately before himself (Matt. 
II. II, 14). But when John declared that 
after him a mightier one shall come, he may 
well have had the feeling, that in his mouth 
that message will have an entirely different 
meaning than in his own. And when Jesus 
commenced his ministry, John felt such a 
great distance between his own thoughts and 
the work of Jesus, that he asked : ^*Art thou 
he that should come, or do we look for an- 
other ?'' Despite these facts, it cannot be 
doubted that an inner harmony exists be- 
tween the main thought of the message of 
John and that of the message of Jesus. The 
Baptist too had to proclaim it as a something 
new that God had entered upon a de- 
cisive forward-movement. But two causes 
prevent us from regarding the message of 
Jesus as a mere imitation of the Johannean. 
The Baptist proclaims the nearness of the 
kingdom of heaven, because he knows that 
^^mightier" is on the way; Jesus, how- 
ever, because he is himself this ^^mightier" ; 
that means, the Baptist proclaims it as one 
to be expected very shortly, Jesus as a work 



The True Answer 57 

of God now becoming realized. The mes- 
sage of the former establishes the final close 
of prophecy ; that of the other the beginning 
of its fulfillment. This is the one difference. 
And the other: the Baptist and Jesus, both 
proclaim a double content of the divine for- 
ward-movement, judgment and grace. But 
the Baptist emphasized judgment, Jesus em- 
phasized grace. Thus the message of Jesus 
remains new and independent even in the 
face of that of his most immediate prede- 
cessor; in this direction it comes also not 
from man, but from God. 

Yes, from God ! That God has arisen to 
permeate the world with the powers of his 
salvation and to save it, can only enter into 
the mind of a man to whom God had re- 
vealed it. Teachings concerning God can 
be invented by man; messages of new in- 
tentions and acts of God, should they not be 
fraudulent, must come from God himself; 
and these considerations lead us to make 
plain also that last, thus far not yet explained 
subject, the question as to the personal dig- 
nity which Jesus claims. Whoever is trust- 
ed by God with a new message to the world, 
is a prophet. If Jesus's message was the 



58 The New Message 

highest of all, he is also the highest among 
the prophets. But he claimed to be more 
(Matt. 1 6. 15 seq.). He called himself the 
Messiah ; he ascribed to himself the power to 
have authority over the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven (Matt. 16. 19), and spoke of his 
future divine glory including the judgment. 
Before we were in inner distress over against 
this fact; can we now understand it better? 
This was the message which Jesus had to 
bring, that God sends new powers of healing 
into the diseased world, and that on this ac- 
count the kingdom of heaven now begins on 
earth, of which the world till then had noth- 
ing but longing and in the most favorable 
case among the Jews only hope. 

And what are these powers of love ? They 
flutter not in secret spell through the air, but 
are comprised in him who could call himself 
the physician, who healed the sick. With a 
glance at the coming son of Mary, whom his 
own child, born unto him in his old age, is to 
serve as herald, Zacharias rejoices: "God 
hath visited and redeemed his people'' (Luke 
I. 68). This son of Mary goes through 
Israel and a gracious message comes from 
his mouth. But from his hands and even 



The True Answer 59 

from his garment (Matt. 9. 21) flows the 
power of healing ; from his depths arises the 
spring of new Hf e ; in his blood is dissolved 
the great debt of humanity. Thus he was 
the highest among all messengers of God 
and yet, at the same time, more than a mere 
messenger ; for that divine message requires 
not only a mouth which proclaims it, but 
also a hand which executes it ; and this up- 
lifted finger of God, the stretched-out hand 
against the stronger, the bread of life and 
light of life, is he, he himself, his own mes- 
senger, the Messiah and Saviour. But, if he 
was this, he could also demand with all 
energy to be considered as more than a 
prophet. The setting and space of a mere 
humanly earthly life is too narrow for the 
mediation of a fundamental, continual, di- 
vine help ; it expands with inner necessity to 
heavenly power and eternal divine power; 
^nd we understand that he, who dies on the 
cross, is sure of ascending to the right hand 
of God. But in that case the Messianic testi- 
mony of Jesus is understood, not as an un- 
necessary form, but as a revelation of the 
innermost secret of the message of God 
which he gave us. 



6o The New Message 

We endeavored to define the new in the 
teaching of Jesus. The way which we first 
took led us past the goal; the newness of 
Jesus, compared with scribism and the proph- 
ets disappeared under our hands; and not 
only the newness of his teaching but the 
purity of his personal life was endangered. 
We then saw that we could not confine the 
new teaching of Jesus to this and not es- 
pecially seek in this, that he revealed unto 
us a new ideal of the fear of God; conse- 
quently, we returned again to the beginning 
and conceived it more deeply, and, behold, 
everything became more definite and regu- 
lar, when we perceived that the new teaching 
of Jesus lies in the message which he brings, 
that God arose to transform the world to a 
kingdom of heaven through Jesus of Naza- 
reth. Indeed, the relation of Jesus to the 
scribes around him, to the prophets before 
him, to the message of God beside him, yea, 
his relation to himself, is clear and true, be- 
cause the new of his teaching is comprised in 
the simple news: ''For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever helieveth in him should not 
perish, hut have everlasting life/' 



MAR 8 1908 



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